'He ain't gonna find out 'less you start slippin', sugar. Since he got outta San Quentin, Lou lost his skills. He gonna end up goin' right back in the joint for fraud. I'm doin' this to teach him a lesson, so you gotta make sure it stays between us and the attorneys. Far as Lou knows, your accountants found this.'
'You can count on me, baby. Now come here an' gimme some play.'
Then I heard a chair scrape again, followed by heavy breathing. It went on for almost two minutes.
'Damn, that be fine,' Curtis said, followed by a moan coming over the VXT. He was getting a hummer.
As I hid in the corridor listening, I tried to figure out Stacy's game. At her house, when I showed up she called Lou. She obviously looked to him for protection. Everything I'd learned about Lethal Force, Inc. suggested that she was the brains behind the label, so why was she pushing this guy Curtis out the door, giving him insider information so he could break his contract and even possibly sue them? She said it was to teach Louis a lesson, but it seemed an expensive way to do it. Like everything else in this case, it was hard to understand.
'I'm out,' I finally heard Stacy say.
The door at the end of the hall opened and she exited the room. I dove into a little alcove in the hall. Stacy strode up the corridor, straightening her blouse, right past the alcove where I was hiding. She was momentarily focused on the elevator and I didn't think she would see me. Then her eyes snapped to the side and she stared right at me. Her expression didn't change, and she showed no sign of recognizing me in my hat and glasses. But one thing chilled me as she hurried on by. Stacy Maluga's eyes were hard and cold and showed no emotion or humanity. Those eyes said she would stop at nothing to get what she wanted.
In that moment, I wondered if I'd been worried about the wrong Maluga. I suddenly wondered if it was Stacy, not Lou, who I should be afraid of.
Chapter 31
Where the Hell are you, Dad?' Chooch sounded angry over the speaker on my cell phone.
'Son, is Lex still there?'
'Yeah, but the other doctors all had to go.'
'Put him on.'
'Where are you?'
'Put him on, Chooch. Stop arguing with me.' Anger flashed. Why was I taking it out on him?
After a few seconds, Luther came on the line. 'Shane?'
'Luther, I'm sorry I missed the meeting.'
'There were two cops here. They had a warrant for your arrest.' His voice was guarded now.
'I think that was just an Internal Affairs charge sheet, not a warrant,' I said. 'It's a interdepartmental document. They have to serve you with a notice of the I. A. complaint. It's just their way of trying to get me to stop looking into this. But I can't stop, Luther, and you wouldn't, either.'
He didn't say anything, so I asked, 'Are the cops still there?' 'No.'
It wasn't easy for him, given all the pressure coming from the chorus of black activists. I knew what they were accusing us of on TV.
'I didn't kill David Slade,' I finally said. 'Neither did Alexa.'
'It's not my job to judge you, Shane. My job is to bring Alexa out of this coma.'
'Will you still meet with me?'
'You mean become an accessory after the fact in a murder?' he said coldly.
'Luther, I know this isn't fair. I know what I'm asking is tough.'
'I owe you for Levonda, but let's be straight. Even though you went way beyond what was normal there, you were still only doing your job. I didn't ask you to put your life's work in jeopardy by harboring a murder suspect.'
I wasn't technically a murder suspect. Last time I checked, I was just a Person of Interest, but that was quibbling.
'Alexa needs surgery,' Luther said. 'The blood flow to parts of her cerebral cortex is low. In time, brain cells will die. I've scheduled her for Monday at ten a. M. This is a risky one, Shane. She's not too strong, and she's not responding to stimuli. Frankly, I have my doubts, but if we're going to have any chance at all of bringing her out of this, I need to go in and fix some things. As her next of kin, I need your signature on a surgical consent form. I had it with me and was going to get you to sign it at our seven-thirty meeting but you didn't show.'
'Luther, I can meet with you now. I can set this up so it will be clean, so nobody will know. Put Chooch back on.'
A moment later, Chooch was on the line. 'Yeah?' he said.
'You know that place where we had dinner after the Servite football game last year?'
'Yeah.'
'I'm worried about the department putting a cell phone track on this number, so don't say the name of the restaurant. Meet me there in forty-five minutes. Try to make sure you're not followed and bring Luther.'
After I hung up, I headed toward the Valley. I knew there was a BOLO out on me, and any patrol car that spotted my plate could pick me up. To avoid that, I drove on residential side streets across the Valley, and forty minutes later, pulled into the parking lot at Dupar's on Thousand Oaks Boulevard. I locked my car and went through the back door of the restaurant into a flurry of activity inside the busy kitchen.
'Is the manager here?' I asked a harried waitress who was retrieving orders.
'That guy,' she said, pointing out a bald man in his forties, wearing dark slacks and a company shirt with dupar's inscribed over his heart.
I walked up and tapped him on the shoulder. He turned and I showed him my badge.
'I'm a police detective,' I said, not giving him my name. 'I'm working a case undercover and I need to borrow an apron and one of those paper hats. My guy is coming in here in a few minutes.'
'This better not turn into some San Diego Denny's-style shootout,' he said, warily.
'It's a tax case, all very nonviolent and boring,' I assured him.
He crossed the room and grabbed a Dupar's apron off a hook on the wall. Then he handed it to me along with a paper hat. I put them on and looked at myself in the shiny refrigerator door. My theory is that anybody in a restaurant wearing a paper hat and apron, standing next to a tub of dirty dishes, instantly becomes invisible.
'What's your name?' I asked the manager.
'Howie Lent.'
'Okay, Howie. Just act normal, don't call attention to me. Everything's gonna be fine.'
I pushed through the swinging door of the kitchen, and entered the busy restaurant. It was around nine o'clock Saturday night. The Cineplex up the street had just let out, and there were a lot of kids eating and clowning around in the dining area. I'd chosen Dupar's because there were high partitions, which created difficult sight lines. The din from the customers permeated everything. I took a position beside a serving station and stood there in my paper hat and apron, watching. Nobody paid any attention to me. I knew if the PSB dicks were serious about picking me up they would have a tail on Luther and Chooch. But I had a way to defeat that.
Ten minutes later Chooch's Cherokee pulled into the parking lot followed by a midnight blue Chrysler PT Cruiser, which I knew was Luther's.
I watched Chooch and Luther enter the crowded restaurant and look around, trying to find me. Like everybody else, they looked right past the guy in the apron and paper hat standing by the bus tray. They found a table, sat down, and waited. If there was a tail, it would come inside soon. I continued to watch the parking lot through the window. After five minutes, I was pretty sure they hadn't been followed. But I still didn't want to take a chance and be wrong. I turned and walked out of the dining area without talking to Luther or Chooch. Once back in the kitchen, I stripped off the apron and handed it to a very relieved Howie Lent and left.
Out in the parking lot, I pulled out a spiral pad, wrote Chooch a note, and put it on his dash. Then I went to the far side of Luther's PT Cruiser and knelt down behind his passenger side rear fender.
Twenty minutes later, Luther and Chooch came out of the restaurant. Both looked at their watches and frowned. This was two meetings in a row I'd missed. Then Luther shook Chooch's hand, they said good-bye, and each headed to his separate car.
